


You are the earth (on which I travel)

by fairywearsbootz



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombies, Canonical Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-25
Updated: 2012-09-25
Packaged: 2017-11-15 00:59:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/521389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairywearsbootz/pseuds/fairywearsbootz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Originally written for <a href="http://magisterequitum.livejournal.com/524169.html">this zombie apocalypse comment ficathon</a> for the prompt "ASOIAF/Game of Thrones, Loras Tyrell, miles and miles in my bare feet / still can't lay me down to sleep"</p>
            </blockquote>





	You are the earth (on which I travel)

He’s only left Highgarden for three days when he loses his horse.

One second he’s riding through golden fields, treacherously peaceful in the soft sway of ripe blades, and the next he’s surrounded, white faces and blood-stained lips and eyes as blue as the core of a flame. He’s got his sword out in a fraction of a second; delivers wild blows to his right, to his left, cuts through too-soft flesh and too-hard bone, but they’ve come too close already. When his horse collapses, he rolls away; comes to his feet. The last of the walkers lunges at him with a snarl, and he slices her neatly in half.

His stallion lies on its side, its breath fast and ragged. Long, glittering ropes of intestines slide further out of its belly with every twitch. The ground around it is so soaked with its blood, it squelches under Loras’ feet when he comes closer.

He knows he doesn’t have to cover its eyes; he’s seen enough horses die on the jousting grounds. He does it anyway, and concentrates on the flicker of its lashes against his palm as his knife slides easily through its throat.

#

He walks from then on, north and east. He follows the Mander at first; stops when he realizes walkers need water as well. Four days stumbling through shrubbery and over rocky paths, his hand always on the hilt of his sword, and he finds a couple of corpses strewn around a barn. One of the men is almost his size, and he takes his boots; swaps them for his own with their worn-through soles. The barn is small, but it has a hayloft. He climbs up, pulls up the ladder, falls sleep amidst death and decay.

#

In his dreams there are no walkers, but that’s not the important point.

In his dreams there is soft skin on soft sheets under soft hands. In his dreams Renley’s heartbeat is strong under his palm, and Renley’s blood flows safely inside his veins.

“My king,” Loras says, against Renley’s neck and against his lips and against the skin of his wrist, where his pulse beats so close to the surface, and Renley smiles, and smiles, and smiles.

“My Hand,” he answers, “no, my _hands_ , my right one _and_ my left,” and he kisses Loras, deep as a thousand deaths and sweeter than a thousand lives, and then Loras wakes, and around him nothing is left but the howling of the wind and the stench of rotten hay.

#

Two weeks since he’s left Highgarden, and it’s the longest he’s ever gone without a bath. His hair’s plastered against his skull in greasy strands; there isn’t a part of him that doesn’t itch. His clothes stink of old sweat and old blood and worse, and his feet are covered with blisters from his new, poorly made boots.

A group of walkers attacks him at noon as he laboriously makes his way up through the mountains, when the sun stands highest and sweat pours down his forehead and into his eyes. One he beheads with a quick stroke of his sword, and then the other three are upon him. They crowd against him, teeth bared and fingers clawed, and he retreats – one step, two steps, three – until he feels warm rock against his back.

One of them grabs for his throat. He charges forwards with a scream, pushes him back until the walker loses traction and tumbles down the cliff in a bundle of arms and legs. Loras spins around, grabs his sword tight, and cuts off a head, hacks into a leg just below the knee. The remaining undead both go down, one of them still squirming and frothing and crawling towards him, and Loras picks up a rock and smashes its skull in.

He stands there, panting, the slippery rock still in his hand; whips his head around widly until he’s sure no more of them are going to come at him. He raises his hands in triumph and lets his head fall back; closes his eyes and can almost hear the cheers.

He’s Ser Loras Tyrell, Knight of Flowers, winner of the tournament of King’s Landing three years in a row. If the Roses around him now have to grow out of flesh and blood and bone, so be it. There isn’t a world where he’ll be defeated by something as common as unwashed, brain-craving northling scum.

#

There’s no shelter in the mountains, no trees high enough, no houses sturdy enough, no rock a walker couldn’t climb as well. He sleeps while standing, and never for long. His boots come away in tatters sometime through his descent, and soon red footsteps trail behind him. He doesn’t remember when he lost his coat, or his belt, or even where.

(Night, day, dead, living, it all blurs together into one continuous, endless dawn, a fog that drains his memories, his pain, his very being. It doesn’t matter anymore; one way or another there’s only one thing left for him to remember.)

#

Storm’s End, when he finally reaches it, looms high and gray above him, shredded banners and shredded guards. He graces it with barely more than a sidelong glance; stumbles his way down to the graveyard instead. He passes dug-up graves and broken coffins, all deserted by the prey as well as the predators.

When he reaches the crypt he can hear faint sounds inside, hollow taps and knocks. With his last strength he pulls the heavy stone doors open; slumps down on the sun-kissed grass in front of the yawning blackness.

He hears him before he sees him; dry scuffle of feet on smooth stone, and then a figure emerges from the dark.

“Renley,” Loras greets him; leans back with a smile. “Did you miss me as I missed you, my king?”


End file.
